1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to support members for a housing system. More particularly, the present invention relates to weight-bearing comer support members that allow for stacking of multiple housing systems while preventing lateral motion thereof.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Most electronic devices today, including computer systems and computer appliances, stereo systems, CD or DVD players, and VCR players, are housed in rectangular metal boxes having, usually, four supporting feet members at the bottom of the boxes. The supporting feet members may be formed from the bottom surface of the housing box, as convex projections, for example, or they may be made of a rubber-like material adhered to the bottom surface of the housing box. An advantage of using a rubber-like material as the feet members is that the rubber-like material is less prone to skidding or sliding on surfaces, thus reducing the chance of accidentally knocking an expensive electronic device off a shelf, a counter, a desk, etc.
When a plurality of electronic device boxes are utilized together, in for example, an entertainment system including an amplifier, a tuner, a CD-player, a VCR player, and a DVD-player; or in a computer networking server system where a number of server appliances are utilized together, the boxes for each of these electronic device components making up the entire system are often stacked vertically on top of each other. Because the supporting feet members are typically located on the bottom surface of the housing box for each electronic device component, as more components are stacked on top of each other, the housing box on the bottom of the stack bears the majority of the weight of all the other components stacked on top, usually with the top surface and the bottom surface of the housing box bearing most of the weight. Because the top surface and the bottom surface of the housing boxes of the lower components in a stack are bearing the weight of the components stacked on top, the weight may cause the top and bottom surfaces of the housing boxes onto which they are stacked to bend and become deformed.
The deformations may cause a change in the shape of the housing box, thus altering the internal airflow patterns inside the housing boxes that may adversely affect cooling of the circuitry within the housing boxes. Therefore, critical circuitry within the housing box may fail because of overheating due to the lack of cooling because of the change of the airflow patterns for which a particular electronic device was designed. Moreover, the supporting feet members of a housing box may not provide enough clearance so that when the housing boxes are stacked on top of each other, the top surface of the lower housing box and the bottom surface of the top housing box may not be able to adequately transfer heat generated by the electronic device to the surrounding air.
For computer system components, such as a server appliance or a desktop computer housed within a box, hard disk drive(s) that are housed therein are usually not readily accessible to a user. Typically, in order to remove a hard disk drive from a computer system, the user will be required to remove the housing cover or casing, exposing the internal circuitry of the computer system, unscrew the hard disk drive from a mounting within the box, and disconnect at least the power and data cables from the hard disk drive.
Alternatively, there are removable hard disk drives for computer systems, for example, for a desktop computer or a laptop computer. These hard disk drives are usually housed in a case or cage, so that they may be selectively removed and inserted (usually being xe2x80x9cfront-loadedxe2x80x9d into the computer system), with the power and data wiring of the hard disk drive being connected to pin connectors located on the cage so that the pin connectors may easily couple with reciprocal pin connectors in the desktop computer or laptop computer, or vice versa.
However, there are times when it is not preferable to be known that a hard disk drive is readily removable from a computer system or computer appliance. The hard disk drive of a computer system or computer appliance may be more prone to tampering if it is known that it is readily removable, even if the hard disk drive is locked into the housing of the computer system or appliance. It is preferable to have a hard disk drive that is removable and yet having this feature remain inconspicuous. Additionally, a computer system or appliance may be more aesthetically pleasing if it is not readily noticeable that it has a removable hard disk drive. Moreover, airflow from cooling fans in a computer system or appliance used to cool the circuitry therein typically do not circulate well to removable hard disk drives that are not completely resident internally within the housing of the computer system or appliance.